


i'm a walking travesty

by rjosettes



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Orphan Black Fusion, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Multi, Other, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-14 23:28:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4584255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rjosettes/pseuds/rjosettes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Malia Yukimura hasn't put down roots since she was eight years old. Going back to the place she last pulled them up brings much more than she bargained for. Derek, a brother she'd nearly forgotten; Stiles, with his wild eyes and even wilder theories; Scott and his perpetual hearteyes for her sister...er, girlfriend.</p>
<p>And that's before she meets Abigail. And Moira. And Tate. Or should she say: herself, herself, and herself.</p>
<p>Project Callisto has some explaining to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm a walking travesty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [biggestpretend](https://archiveofourown.org/users/biggestpretend/gifts).



> My recipient for the Polyamorous Wolf Exchange thought that an Orphan Black fusion might be impossible, at least for the exchange. Well, I tried my best.
> 
> Accompanying mixes are [here](http://8tracks.com/betasinlove/i-m-a-walking-travesty) and [here](http://8tracks.com/betasinlove/sinking-in-an-ocean-of-faces). Each section of this corresponds to a song on my I'm a Walking Travesty mix.
> 
> BIG NOTE: This story is not marked for incest, but Malia and Kira belong to the same family and share a romantic and sexual relationship. I considered the details (they knew each other prior to becoming family at the age of nine and definitely share no biological ties) and thought this was best despite the fact that they are, technically, sisters. If anyone would like me to tag for this, I'll definitely make the change.

###  _who are you, really?_

Noshiko stares at the papers spread on the kitchen bar - the table and couch were donated, and there's nowhere else to contemplate the future of herself and her family. They vacate the apartment tomorrow; her daughters are out celebrating their last night in New York while her husband packs the smaller bags full of their travel clothes. Denver, St. Louis, Orlando, Seattle, and now New York - places they've loved (or hated) and left behind, throwing their lives onto their backs to be carried on to the next place. The next stop. Always a pin point on the road map and never a home.

Kira and Malia both remember home. The feeling of it, of having roots somewhere. Of knowing the people you see on your morning car ride, of having a favorite place in the neighborhood that took time to find. They remember the reality of home, too, though, and Noshiko has fought tooth and nail to keep them from facing that danger again. 

She's lost. Kira is going to college in California, and Malia will follow her wherever she goes, and, well. By that point they all have to follow, whether she and Ken like it or not. Beacon Hills is calling out to them as it always has, ever since the night they drove away, taking a winding path out of town to avoid the preserve, the school, anything that might make the girls fuss more than necessary. They had been nine, Malia barely so, and she'd only been living with them a few months. It was the longest they could wait after what happened to the Hales. Hale, the name Malia still diligently wrote on her schoolwork with pride, remembering her family.

Malia is a Yukimura now, and the Yukimura family has a flight to catch in the morning. Noshiko steadies her palms on the bar and closes her eyes in the dim kitchen. They flare behind her lids like fire, and she holds back the glow, holds back the nervous tension that threatens everything. They can make it through a summer. One summer and the girls will be in Los Angeles instead, busy and anonymous.

Noshiko tucks all of the falsified documents back into her purse, satisfied that she has everything they'll need. The orange glow fades and she opens her eyes, surveying the empty apartment. 

In her head, she repeats the necessary lie: they are the Yukimuras, and they always have been.

###  _let it land_

The desk in Dr. Morrell's office is always neat. Session after session and her appointment book and case notes stay closed but within reach. She never so much as clicks a stray pen during her time with Abigail, leaning back in her chair with that calm, slightly guarded demeanor. It makes Abigail nervous. Not nearly as nervous as today does, watching her tidy, guarded psychologist shuffle things around and glance at the clock every few moments. Like she's the anxious one. Like she's the one who has the pressure of two flawless adult siblings slowly sinking her into the ground when she's only eighteen years and there's only so much a girl can do to keep up with her life. Like...well. Like she's the patient and not the doctor.

"Have you spoken with your brother since the last time I saw you?" is the topic of choice today for their individual time, and Abigail almost wishes she could go back to group where they call her Abby and say they understand. Almost. She's getting tired of this question and its follow-ups ("Why not? What about your father?"), but she loathes nicknames even more.

"I don't know why I have to keep telling you no. You know who I call and who I don't. I know they keep phone records and I know you have access to them. You probably know what Alex was having for dinner last Tuesday when I talked to him. You know that Stiles called at two this morning because he forgot it wasn't a cell number directly to me. So no, I haven't talked to my brother, or my father, or his wife. I have not. I will not."

Dr. Morrell looks up from her own nervous hands with those big brown eyes. Stiles trusts her, which is saying something, but Abigail has never felt the sense of compassion he says he gets from her. Marin (which she's not supposed to say aloud, something about professionalism) and her eyes are judgmental and unresting. It's unsettling at best and terrifying at worst, on days when everything in her head gets a little too quiet, like she fears someone will hear what's inside. "Are you ever planning on leaving Eichen House, Abigail?"

And that's the big question, isn't it? Graduating a semester early had been her choice, one that everyone had called smart. She could start college in the spring, or she could work, or she could travel. She could do so many things with that time.

It's June and Abigail is a hundred miles from home in an in-patient facility with four Ws and one arrest on her record. College is a bust. Work is a best. Hell, her clean record is a bust. What she has is medication (prescribed, this time), her boyfriend, and the other patients in this godforsaken place. The in-patients, like Meredith, and the out-patients, like Stiles. It feels pathetic that she cares more about them than she ever had about the quiz bowl members, the student council co-chair, the softball team. She doesn't want to speak to anyone at home outside of Alex. She'd rather eat a bland lunch with Stiles (ADHD, panic attacks, assorted anxieties and feelings of worthlessness, and one grade A case of old trauma and survivor's guilt) than force down some chic gourmet experiment from her father's lovely trophy wife. She'd rather listen to Meredith talking into the cheap brick of a phone she keeps by her bedside (no battery, of course) for hours than hear her brother's voice saying hello.

"Of course," she answers, hands folded politely in her lap. "Of course I want to leave here. As soon as you think I'm ready."

### _therapy_

Stiles fucking hates group therapy.

There's something downright nasty about making someone exorcise their demons in public. He likes Marin; she asks him about lacrosse and his gaming habit before his feelings, always, like she knows getting him into a good ramble breaks down his walls. It's the way Scott would do it, and Stiles can appreciate that. But even with her leading the group, his knee starts going, up and down, twice as fast if anyone's looking at him. His heart rabbits in his chest and he eats away the skin around his fingernails. Abigail is always stone beside him, perfectly still but equally silent. You never get out of therapy if you never talk, though, and so sometimes he has to.

It's ten minutes after he's been forced through detailing memories of his mother that he collapses on an already occupied bench outside. "She never makes you talk about _your_ mom," he complains. Abigail not Abby, as he'd come to think of her within the first two weeks, is eating the peanut butter and jelly sandwich he'd brought her from home. "And mine hasn't even been dead as long."

"It's off-limits," she says simply, like she's discovered some life hack to handling the doctors here, which, seriously? If those are the perks of living here, he'll bring his pillow next time. Not really, because he's pretty sure Scott would get tired of driving down, but he wants these insider secrets. Maybe Oliver will know something. "This is crunchy peanut butter."

"You asked for crunchy peanut butter."

"You were upside down and counting when I asked, I sort of assumed you'd forget." She peels the crusts of the bread off and Stiles picks them up from the plastic bag, shoving them in his mouth with the best offended look he can muster. "Heathen," she says, wrinkling her nose, and he laughs.

"If only you knew who you sounded like." Abigail is like a Lydia gone wrong - sometimes in a great way and sometimes not. He sometimes feels weirdly like she's what would happen if in some bizarre universe, he and Lydia had a child. She rolls her whole head with her eyes like he does and knows more about Star Wars than any former prom queen should. Then again, she's also here because she was caught with the nerd equivalent of performance-enhancing drugs and occasionally slips into the most intense periods of frantic nervous grooming that he's ever seen. Stiles likes to think he knows what it's like for her, all of the pressure and the panic, but he never says that, especially not in group. She doesn't like to be told that anyone understands her. He's getting that, even though he's just the opposite. Scott has his back there, though, so instead he talks about his own increasing nerves about college and beyond.

She eyes him critically, unsticks her tongue from the roof of her mouth, and swallows. "Easy, loverboy." Everything about the delivery is flat as a pancake - the voice, the face - but he can't help but crack a smile. "How is she, anyway? Last summer to make her learn your name, isn't it?"

It's an easy conversation, talking about Lydia Martin and what she's doing with her girlfriend around town this summer before they head to...who knows. London. Paris. Anywhere that might have fashion and science both thriving that isn't anywhere near Beacon Hills. He waxes poetic about Lydia for Abigail's pleasure, like he always does, because he thinks it makes her feel better about herself. Abigail is beautiful and always, always wearing lipstick somehow, and Stiles is continuously surprised that he's not attracted to her even after getting to be close friends. But maybe that's it - Stiles doesn't know Lydia. Abigail is the gorgeous, hyper-competent high school queen laid bare, and she is messy and wonderful, but not what he needs or even what he wants in that way. She makes a hell of a best friend in a place like this, though, someone to keep him company in between group and his scheduled time with Marin.

He know she'll get out sometime, and she'll head all the way back south where she belongs, but until then he's gonna enjoy the hell out of her and just maybe be the bright spot in her day.

###  _i never can relax_

"You have the worst tell in the world," Scott says, a tiny smile on his face. He's reclining on the bed, Stiles's tablet propped against his knees as he plays QuizUp. He doesn't even look up from his round of Biology to call Stiles out, which is infuriating and amazing. Just like the way his lips are still plump from kissing. Stiles runs his fingers through his hair again like it will help the nervous energy in his hands. "Do you want to go out tonight? Is that what's going on here? Because I'm pretty sure you have stuff to do that isn't wearing a hole in that rug, and you're not getting any of it - SHIT!" He sighs and drops the tablet to the bedspread.

"By like two points again?"

"Yeah. "

"It's your reaction time, man. I know you're getting everything right." He rests his ass on the edge of his bed for about five seconds, and then he's pacing back to the closet to stare at the maybe four pieces of clean, club-ready clothing he owns. "I don't know." He flips left through the hangers, then right, then left again. "Should we go? No one's going to hit on me, they're all going to hit on you."

Scott's shaking his head behind Stiles's back, it's so obvious he can _feel_ it, but it's fond, so he's not pissed. He managed to turn fast enough to catch it before Scott stops, schools his face into something more unconcerned, and shrugs. "So I'll sit somewhere and you can go...away from me."

"But then they won't-"

"You can tell them, can't you? Hey, I have a boyfriend, but he's not in the mood 97% of the time and blowing off some steam would be nice."

"It's more like 95," Stiles corrects. Not that he's keeping track. He gets that if it were pretty much anyone else, Scott would be not in the mood 100% of the time, and there'd be nothing to talk about here. And it's not like he didn't spend his teenage years jerking it to porn in several distinct phases: straight couples with lots of kissing involved, girls masturbating, guys masturbating, the 'for women' section (because he's stubborn like that and some of it was really pretty good re: making out and realistic orgasms), and finally settling into the habit of shamelessly googling for whatever he wants or asking for recommendations online. Even without the internet, he always got by just fine before Scott. And yeah, maybe it sucks a little more going without now that he knows what it's like, especially with someone who loves him and knows him so well, but what are you gonna do? 

The answer, from Scott himself, is sometimes make out with strangers who might want to interact with his dick at some point. It's worked out okay so far. "I guess so. You're sure that you're okay with that? Not being close by?"

He drums his fingers against the top of the dresser in an increasingly rapid rhythm, weighing the pros and cons. He can't really dance, not in a way that does him any favors at least, and personality-wise he knows he can be an acquired taste. On the bright side, some people show a good bit of interest in acquiring that taste based on the fact that somewhere along the line, he managed to pick up enough tongue talent to be a pretty worthy makeout partner. And that's really all he's looking for right now - someone who will kiss him for a while and maybe put their hands on him. The jeep's not a great place for sex and neither is the bathroom, and he would never leave Scott stranded. Not to mention going home with strangers skeeves him out a good bit still, even when the promise of head is tempting. He realizes, out of nowhere, that Scott hasn't answered him.

"Well?"

"We can go out or you can find that treadmill your dad buried under dress clothes."

###  _mouthwash_

Malia swishes and spits into the sink, slipping the mini bottle of Scope back into Kira's skirt pocket. The bathroom is always the first place they visit when they go out somewhere new, and Jungle's could honestly be worst. Clean enough for Kira to pee in is the official test, and that's been handled. She's finishing up washing her hands while Malia is slicking on chapstick, popping her lips until they're soft and smoothed over. The tube goes right into Kira's skirt with the mouthwash, and for a split second she's wondering how deep those pockets go. After that she's wrist deep inside them, pinning the fabric to the backs of Kira's thighs, grinning as her fingers slip from random pocket contents to the soft give of flesh. "One phone on each side," she says, pressing her lips to Kira's forehead briefly.

"I'll be lopsided otherwise," Kira whines, like she's being picked on. She pushes back into Malia's hands, though, and everything is starting to feel right already. The first time out in a new place is always iffy, especially in a smaller town like Beacon Hills. The fact that there was a club at all, much less two, had blown their minds a little bit. It wasn't the kind of thing you noticed as a nine-year-old, and Malia's fairly sure that the club they'd passed on, Sinema, is far more recent than their less than graceful exit from their hometown. It's been long enough that the whole place feels unfamiliar so far, with the stores that have closed and the new structures that have popped up. The streets aren't full of their childhood friends; those friends are somewhere out in this crowd, or another, or at home in their rooms for what might be their last summer at home. Beacon Hills grew up without them, and they're here to catch up a while before they go out on their own.

The crowd here is more of a mix than either of them had expected. They've been in queer clubs, and they've been in some pretty alternative joints, but the lines blur here. Tattoos and piercings are par for the course, but that's not surprising; Malia's not flashing her belly button tonight and Kira's shirt covers her shoulders, but they're not without a little ornamentation themselves. What is out of the ordinary is the way she keeps catching glimpses of things you might find in a science fiction film instead of a dark dance floor. People with subdermal implants in strange shapes - a waveform she thought was a squiggle until she danced in for a closer look, the shape of a padlock between someone's collarbones - and a scattered handful of intensely high twenty-somethings all wearing one pure white contact over their iris. When she heads to the bathroom a second time to wash a spilled drink out of the hem of her shirt, she passes a tall, beautiful older woman with long brown hair and vibrantly red eyes who winks her way. A weird shiver goes up her spine. She chalks it up to attraction and handles her business so she can get back out to Kira.

She's only halfway back to their spot near the bar when she gets caught on the dance floor. The girl with the hot pink bob is grinning and giggling, her hands on Malia's shoulders, and it's hard not to smile back when she starts playing with strands of Malia's hair. Landing a job can be hell even when she picks a more sedate shade of blue dye, but it stays for now, for this summer. She's so caught up in the fluorescent pinkness of this girl that for a while she doesn't notice the bigger hands creeping to her waist, the body behind her that feels tall and lean. Maybe she's wedged herself in between a couple, but they don't seem to mind, and Kira can handle herself for a few songs. She's a big girl, and probably out dancing with someone else too. It's the first night, too early to be playing their little game, but that doesn't mean they won't be scoping out opportunities for down the line. Someone has to win at picking the best new friend to take home and have fun with.

Curiosity eats at her the longer she's dancing, the fingers that steady her from behind creeping beneath the hem of her shirt, colder than she expects. She winks and drops a kiss on the cheek of her dance partner before she turns, keeping a little distance so she can get a good idea of the other side of this sandwich. He's maybe six feet, brown hair, pretty mouth parted in surprise, like he hadn't expected her to face him. She twines her arms around him and pulls him closer, rubbing her body against him, trying to be welcoming. This prospect is _very_ promising. His tongue traces his lips once, twice, his eyes darting here and there, and then he's leaning in. It's fast, but she shuts her eyes and anticipates the kiss, wonders if the first night is too soon after all. Hey, she probably shared a playground with this guy at some point.

His mouth brushes her ear instead and her pulse spikes, body taut with tension. His breath is so much warmer than his fingers, coming quick, and she'd say yes to almost anything in the moment, even if she changed her mind as soon as it left her mouth.

"Abigail?!"

###  _love at first sight_

"Okay, but wait!" Stiles is yelling into the noise, trying not to stumble as he's led by his belt loop to a table in the corner. It's not much quieter, but there are fewer people and a place to sit. She tucks her hair behind her ear as she sits, and he sees that she has four holes where Abigail has two. "I'm serious, do you have, like. A sister or something? Are you visiting her? I thought her sister was, like. Thirty? You aren't thirty."

"I'm twenty-one," she lies, in that way that everyone their age seems to have. He squints at her and she laughs, probably at his face, which people tend to do. "I'm eighteen," she admits. "Definitely not thirty. My sister's around here somewhere." She doesn't even gesture, just nods at the bar, eyes still on him. Maria - he thinks she's named Maria at least, it had been hard to hear - looks at him like he's warm and tasty and just about ready to eat. The girl in the wig on the dance floor, she'd liked him well enough, but nothing like this. It's almost hard to focus on the bigger picture here.

"Abigail's here? In Jungle." Fucking inconceivable. She can't even answer the phone at midnight, so coming out to dance somewhere she doesn't even belong - straight as an arrow and about as straight-edge as someone who's technically institutionalized for drug-related reasons can be - is out of the question.

Her blue-haired doppelganger crosses her legs, drawing his attention to what seems like miles of skin all the way up to the hem of her tiny shorts. He swallows, blinking rapidly and refocusing on her face, just as amused as ever. “I don't know any Abigail,” she says. “And I'm not visiting anyone, I live here. Again.” She looks almost triumphant at that and there is...yeah, definitely a story there.

“It's just that you look just like my friend. Like, _exactly_ like my friend, except your whole-” He waves at her, from her candy-colored hair to her tiny shorts. “Thing you have going on.”

“My thing,” she repeats, her eybrows up, and Jesus, she needs to stop that. “Is this one of those ploys to get me to leave with you? Oh, you should meet my friend, you look just alike. Because you don't need to do that with me. I don't need excuses to go home with someone.” He can't tell if she's fucking with him or not, mostly because his mouth is dry and Scott really needs to be here to prove this happening, later.

He's about to tell her he doesn't actually have somewhere to take her, at least not tonight, when a tiny girl with black hair almost sends him toppling in her hurry to sit down at the table. “Malia,” she says cheerfully, and plants her open mouth against the other girl's, melting into her until they're practically in one another's laps. It goes on for longer than he's strictly comfortable with, especially two seconds after Malia (at least he has a lock on her name now?) was pretty strongly implying she would get naked with him given the chance. They part with their hair still curling over each other's shoulders, smiling. “Oh, he's cute,” the new girl says, and Stiles holds back the urge to ask whether she means baby animal cute or threesome participant cute.

“This is Kira,” Malia tells him, collecting a canned Sprite from where Kira sat them down on the tabletop. She takes a long sip, shaking her head like someone who's taken a shot of whiskey instead, and meets his eyes. “My sister.”

Somewhere between choking on his own spit and trying to suppress any offensive questions about a) the fact that they look nothing alike or b) the fact that they just tangled tongues for a good fifteen seconds, Kira faces him head on. There's a wave of familiarity again, vaguer this time, and he's starting to wonder if this is a symptom of some kind of mini-stroke. Scott would know. “So you guys are new,” he says uncertainly, watching them giggle at his measured reaction.

“Old,” Kira disagrees. “We lived here before, we just got back from New York. I don't remember there being this many people in Beacon Hills.”

Stiles glances over his shoulder at the crowd, spots his former dance partner kissing someone else out on the floor. “Well, they're not all from here in Beacon Hills. For some reason this is, like. The coolest place in Beacon County now. Marketing to the weird crowd.”

“The people with the contacts?”

He nods fervently. “Not just contacts, either. I've seen white hair, filed teeth, this guy with like...” He tries to find the words for it, tapping absently near the top of his chest where he'd seen it.

“Implants,” Malia supplies. “The padlock? I saw that too. I knew a couple girls with hearts and guys with stars before, but never a lock like that. Someone else has the...y'know from the AM album cover?” She traces a squiggling shape in the air. “I wouldn't get one of those in a million years. I've seen them wear through, and it smells like death.”

Kira makes a face at her, and Stiles can tell this is a conversation that's happened before. They still don't seem much like sisters to him, but he can tell how much time they spend around one another. Reminds him of how he's always been with Scott, and how many times he slapped the word 'brother' on to cover what he couldn't explain about their relationship. “So, uh...” he starts, hesitating. “One of you is adopted?”

Malia's hand goes up briefly. “Right before we left. Fourth grade.”

Fourth grade is pretty hazy in Stiles's memory at this point. The only person he remembers leaving is Theo, and then only because Scott had been so upset about it. “And you went to school here?”

The girls consult each other silently, Kira's expression a jumble of nerves despite the fact that Malia looks almost bored, resigned. “We did,” she speaks up finally, putting her hand over Kira's where it rests on the table. “You probably remember the fire better than us going anywhere, though.”

The fire, Stiles thinks, and something clicks in his head, memories crashing through the floodgates. “The fire in the preserve,” he says carefully. “The Hale house. My dad was involved with that case. You're a Hale?”

“I'm a Yukimura,” Malia says, and her face is set, like this isn't up for any more discussion.

It's looking like almost time to bail when it comes to him. “Yukimura,” he mumbles to himself. “Kira Yukimura. Holy shit. We were always in the same reading group. I'm Stiles,” he adds quickly, when he realizes no one's even asked and he hasn't offered. “Stiles Stilinski, they used to call me-”

“By the name with all the z's!” Kira looks thrilled, and relief washes over Stiles. She remembers. “Someone else learned to spell it before you, so you started writing your nickname down on your tests. I remember that!”

It's been more than a decade, but honestly, fuck Lydia and the way she'd looked so bored as she spelled aloud in _Polish_ , as if she just knew and hadn't looked into her mom's papers from school to find his name. It pisses him off worse now than it had then, a couple of years before he'd decided he was in love with her and convinced himself that her knowing how to spell his first name was a good start. “For the record, I can totally spell that now. On a good day.” She smiles at him so broadly his heart skips – half because she's a very pretty girl and half because it makes him think of Scott. Shit. Scott, who is somewhere in this club and would probably think this is a really cool coincidence, too.

It's easy enough to whip out his phone and call Scott over, and before he knows it the four of them – or the three, honestly, as Malia sits and observes with her drink and a mostly neutral look on her face – are trading stories from fourth grade and earlier, anything at all they can remember. Scott remembers Kira and Malia's dad, who'd drive down from the high school to pick them up after school, and Kira tries to remember anyone else from their grade, correctly naming off Isaac Lahey and Danny Mahealani before she slips into names Malia recognizes from fifth grade in Denver, instead.

Scott's the one who suggests they hop in the Jeep and head to the diner where they can eat and have a soda that's not marked up 300%, and the girls seem as on-board as can be. The ride is short and Scott doesn't let it fall quiet, saving Stiles the awkwardness of the silent trip because he's an absolute saint. He even gets Malia talking again, asking what they're planning to do this summer and where they'll be off to next. 

The diner is all-night now that there are two clubs and plenty of drunk and stoned people to demand food in town. Stiles has to call his dad twice to assure him that yes, he's alive, and yes, he's still with Scott, and they're in a legitimate place of business where nothing sketchy is likely to be happening.

The second time he comes back from a call, Kira's moved to Scott's side of the booth, turned toward him with both hands crossed over his knee, talking exuberantly about...something that Scott seems to be able to follow. Malia grins and shrugs at him, unfazed, and pats the vacated seat beside her expectantly.

“So,” she says, dipping her curly fry into his chocolate milkshake, “you're a pretty good dancer.”

He thinks he might be in love.

###  _la familia_

Kira's app of choice is Trivia Crack, which pretty much sucks, because Scott could really use some people he actually knows on QuizUp. They're playing on their phones side by side on his bed, wasting time until Stiles and Malia get back from – well, whatever they're doing. It's not that it bothers Scott, at all; if it did, he'd have a problem with Kira, too, and she's kind of the greatest. They've been hanging out for a few weeks, anyway, and Scott can feel how much better this is for Stiles than going out and trying to make things work with strangers. He's not entirely sure what the three of them _are_ to each other, beyond the fact that Malia and Kira definitely go deeper than sex with each other, and that Stiles is still his in all the ways that matter to him. The problem is that even Kira keeps getting wedged out the last week or so, and something about it feels not quite right. Scott isn't the suspicious type, but he knows Stiles, and he can smell a rat a mile away when it comes to his boyfriend.

“Is there something they like that you don't?” he asks, breezing through a science question and crossing his fingers that he doesn't get art next. “You know, in bed?”

That question seems to embarrass her a little, a reminder that not everybody just throws that kind of stuff out there the way Stiles does. “I don't think so?” she answers anyway. “They didn't actually ask me to leave this time, I may have just...decided to come over?” There's something to the little smile she gives him, like hope, and he tilts his head at her. “I like having sex with them, but we never hang out alone, so I thought...”

“Good,” Scott says when it seems like she won't finish that sentence. “I'm glad you came over. Better than you spending an entire Friday evening at the library,” he teases. If she'd texted him, they could've seen a movie or something. By now they've taken the girls around to all their old haunts, pointing out the new upgrades on the elementary school playground through the wire fence and driving slow past the preserve until Scott nudged Stiles to move on, watching the way Malia got progressively more on edge. “Do you think it's that they've got feelings for each other? Dating ones, I mean; obviously we all have feelings about each other.”

Kira worries at her lip as she taps her way through a challenge, going five for seven and just barely winning. “Maybe? I'm not sure. If that's it, then it's kind of silly.”

“It is?”

She locks her phone and Scott sits his down respectfully, seeing the serious kind of talk coming. Kira takes less time to work up to it than Stiles usually does, at least, because she's talking again in about thirty seconds compared to thirty minutes. “Well, I'd sort of like to date Stiles, too. It's just that we're only here for a while, and Stiles is...”

He wishes he could be patient enough to wait on that one, but he can't, not with this information in his hands. “Stiles is what?”

“With you,” she says simply, her blush from before intensifying as she brushes her hair out of her face. “Stiles is with you, and I don't really know how Malia feels about you, and we're sort of a package deal. We, um. We talked about that a little while ago. Before we came here, when we started...well.” Sleeping with other people, is what she means, and Scott can see how that would make sense. Stiles had never asked him about dating anyone else because that wasn't what he needed, and they both knew that. He'd always been totally up front about the fact that Scott was enough for him in every way; the extracurricular activities at Jungle and Sinema had been Scott's idea and supported from start to finish. Dating is a much bigger deal. “And I guess you guys might be, too? It's sort of messy. With Malia, and then I don't know how _you_ feel and-”

“I like you,” Scott says plainly. Making things more confused by holding it back seems like just about the worst idea. “I guess I don't know Malia as good – as _well_ as you, but if that's how you guys work, I think I'd be okay with it. Stiles likes her a lot. Like, Lydia Martin a lot, except this time they're sort of both invested.”

“But if you like us...” Kira looks genuinely confused. “Why are we always trying to find time when you're busy to...”

It slowly dawns on Scott that Stiles hasn't said anything. Like he's afraid of outing Scott or something, when he's never exactly been quiet about this part of himself. “I'm asexual,” he says easily, trying to keep it casual. It's become a sort of litmus test for people; the ones who don't make a huge deal of it are usually better with it in general. “For the most part, at least. Stiles is about as sexual as they come, and I love him, so things happen sometimes. It's not that I don't like it, I just...don't really care about it, usually.”

Kira actually looks...wow. Excited? “That's a relief,” she admits. “I thought you just maybe weren't...you know. Attracted to me? To us, I mean, to us.” She fiddles with her phone without turning the screen back on, occupying her hands. “Because I'd seen you kissing Stiles plenty, but if you'd kissed us before we knew, it could've gotten messy.”

“I would've just told you then, actually. But yeah. It's not a huge deal, and I like kissing. Bodies don't really bother me or anything. I don't think it'd even be too bad to be around with you three. It might be nice to see how things...go? With you all. But.”

“You won't be turned on by it. I get it. Malia might have a little more trouble with it, but she knows it's a thing. We had ace friends in high school. A couple, actually, which I guess was convenient for them.”

Scott laughs. “You guys were lucky. Moving around a lot can suck, but at least you landed in a few cities where they actually knew something. BHHS basically had Danny and then me and Stiles. I guess we'd have had you and Malia, if you stayed. There's not even a student group.”

“Maybe Stiles can start one? Hasn't he been talking about teaching?”

“Yeah, uh. About that. Never trust Stiles on anything he says about career choices or his favorite fast food place. They both change every couple weeks.”

Conversation moves along fast from there, and Scott is left to think quietly about it all. Stiles, the girls. How he feels about dating someone who isn't so incredibly _safe_ as his best friend. He's never had to question if he'll fuck up and lose Stiles, no matter what happens. It'd take something more awful than either of them is capable of (he thinks) to pull them out. Scott loves new people, he does, but that immediate happy glow from them is fragile, and he's already felt the way it can break. He didn't date anyone again until Stiles late in junior year, and he hadn't imagined that he'd be considering anyone else.

Kira leans her head on his shoulder, though, and she helps him with his art questions while he helps her with the more obscure sports and a few literature ones. That summer of classics binging turned out to be good for more than a distraction after all.

###  _of all the gin joints in all the world_

Derek doesn't like hitchhikers. He doesn't like strangers at all, actually, which is partially a Hale family legacy and partially the fact that at least three organizations (two with government funding) would love to get their hands on him. He'd prefer to keep both his head and his freedom, so he tries to make a point of keeping things lowkey. Burner phones to drop calls to his sisters and to Tate, polite conversation in diners where he pays in cash and uses a different name each time. He doesn't have a lot to keep track of and hasn't for a long time.

He's Michael Erikson headed for Las Vegas when he meets the girl outside of New Orleans. She doesn't look so down on her luck, matching leather boots and jacket a clear sign of expensive taste. He eavesdrops on her chitchatting with the waitress across the room, though, nothing she could expect to be overheard; she's been hitchhiking for a long time. She even shows off ragged sneakers from her bag, for when she's walking instead of riding. He tries to picture her in them and fails, looking back down at his eggs when she scans the room and catches him watching. If she weren't both attractive and conspicuous in a place like this, he'd be embarrassed. Instead he finishes his food and leaves a hefty tip at his table with the money for the bill.

He'd made a point to hover outside a while, poking around in his trunk as if there were more in there than a mix of clean and dirty clothes and a few crumpled maps that he doesn't need anymore. Once he gets down south like this, he knows his way back to Beacon Hills a hundred ways. Maybe a couple of those hundred will pass through where this woman's headed. So he sorts his trunk laundry into clean and dirty, and then the dirty into whites and colors, and he waits.

Her name's Braeden and she climbs right in like she's not afraid of anything. The scars on her throat say maybe she ought to be, but she waits patiently for him to ask about them when she sees him looking. He says nothing. He'd have a lot of scars to ask about if he weren't so lucky. She's heading north, she says, past where he's already said he's going, so they make a deal to stick together until Vegas. They can't both sleep in his car, though, and that's the point where things started to get interesting.

There's a roll of cash inside one of her sneakers that she waves around like she's already in some casino. Derek keeps his money secreted away, because as much as he has, there's no reason to go getting it stolen. She'd offered to pay for a second motel room for their stops, but he shuts her down politely and they go halves on rooms with two queens. It's cheaper, and this way he actually feels less vulnerable. Braeden doesn't fit the description of any woman he'd be known to be traveling with and it settles around him like a security blanket. He's been shaving meticulously as a precaution for days but he stops now, lets out a little slack and doesn't feel so pressed for time or secrecy. She still thinks he's Michael Erikson with no sisters and one brother and both his parents alive in Spokane, but otherwise, he's been comfortable with her so far. He lets her work the radio and even lets her drive, a few times, when his ass is asleep and he can pretend to check the map for her.

She makes calls sometimes – at the rare payphones, a few times, and on her own phone at others. He tries not to let her see him with the burners if he can help it. It cuts him back to one call a day, alternating between Laura and Cora in case they're not together when he can get away to make the call. Tate needs a checkup about as much as he does these days. They always seem to be a step or two ahead of him on things, and they never panic when he doesn't call like Laura does. Besides, their college work and their girlfriend probably take up a lot of that worrying time. He's left alone with his thoughts and Braeden, who seems to have a lot to say about everything and disagrees with him on most of it. It's kind of...fun, if he's honest with himself.

It takes them four days, counting the one he picked her up, to make it to Vegas. He'd be where he's really going by this point if he were traveling alone. This might be a false lead anyway, some teenagers dicking around on the internet. Tate said no one had provided a picture of either of the girls that could be Callistos. He's the one of the two of them that has the time to make the run and check, though, and it's been a while since he's stopped out in the preserve. He hasn't been home in four years, even passing through, and it's getting to be time. He can't leave flowers on headstones or bring his sisters, but he can at least pay his respects to the shell of their home and the woods he spent his childhood playing in, oblivious. It's good that the trip has been longer than usual. He can prepare himself a little better to see everything without Laura at his side to hold him up. Biologically, he's the strong one – faster and more efficient healing, has been known to lift twice what he should be able to – but Laura is the rock. Cora sulks and Derek buries himself in whatever he's doing at the moment, but Laura pulls through for them, without exception.

Braeden talks Derek into a last hurrah in Nevada. No gambling, no strip clubs, just a room that's nice for once and a good breakfast the next morning before they go their separate ways. It doesn't take long to convince him, actually; he misses his bed at home and he's tired of the road. He's sure if that's true of him, Braeden has needed this for a long time. She produces a credit card from that same ragged sneaker and lets him pay her for his half in cash.

The room has one bed. It's not heart-shaped or beneath a mirror, no crushed red velvet. But it's one bed. Big enough for them not to touch if they keep to their own sides. The problem is, she gives him the first shower after three nights of looking like she might kill him in his sleep if he were to even suggest it. He hears the click of the lock engaging as soon as he steps under the spray. It's a long, slow shower while he thinks about that. She's gone. She'd put up half of a generous sum of money to let him sleep alone in a nice bed for the night.

He leaves his towel damp and crumpled on the floor and doesn't bother to get any more dressed than his underwear. It'll be hours before he can fall asleep, he knows, but there's a television here with more channels than he even has at home. Most of them are stocked with porn at exorbitant prices – something he has little to no interest in even when it's free – but he finds a station playing old black and white movies and tries to let it catch his attention. He's about two yawns away from calling Cora to see if they get this channel at home, whether she's seen this movie before. She hates movies, but he feels suddenly and pervasively lonely in this nice room without his roommate. It's been three days, and he wonders what the car will feel like with the passenger seat empty and only the songs he likes on the radio.

He hears the click and beep and has to pretend he didn't jump a foot when Braeden swings in with shiny opaque bags in her hands and the same old green duffel over her shoulder. “Getting comfortable?” she asks him, laughing. She's teasing him. She's here in the room again and she's teasing him like she has no idea what he's been thinking. A shopping trip. He feels a little silly for how upset he was, thinking she was gone. She will be gone tomorrow.

The new bags go with her into the bathroom (after she peeks around the door to scold him for the dropped towel, wagging her finger like he's a child that's been disobedient) and he figures she must be tired of wearing the same few outfits. He'd packed enough to last until Beacon Hills at his usual pace plus an extra pair of underwear (his mother's voice in his head with Laura's words, 'you never know'), which means they're clean, but the jeans and shirt he wears into town tomorrow won't be. It'll have to do.

He's hovering at the edge of sleep, turned over with his head buried in the pillow, when the room heats up with released steam and the television shuts off. There's no sound but the low hum of the air conditioning; Braeden's weight shifts the bed without any evidence of her crossing the distance to him. Without knowing why he holds his breath, eyes open and fixed on the opposite wall, waiting for something. Anything. She doesn't seem like the kind of woman who likes to say a long goodbye.

There's no hiding the way he flinches this time, not when her palm lies warm and flat against his shoulder blade and he can feel her hair tickling at his arm. No one laughs at his jumpiness now. Derek doesn't like the gravity of it, of her presence behind him with no words at a moment like this, but before he can move to turn over she's tugging at him, pulling him onto his back into the soft, clean sheets.

“You bought underwear,” he says dumbly, staring at the black lace of the conspicuously new bra. Not that he's been looking, these past few days, but she packs and unpacks her things in plain sight and this one smells like the store it came from, light and flowery perfume that is nothing like Braeden. He trains his eyes on hers after a quick peek, reminding himself that he's in his underwear, too. It's just a luxury, something nice for when you're not worried what's been done on the sheets since they were last washed. “Did you run out of clean ones?”

“Almost,” Braeden agrees, her voice as heavy and warm as the way she looks at him. He _knows_ , in that moment, feels it stir in him in a way that it hasn't in a while. It's been waking up by degrees over the past few days – the first time her eyes met his before he looked away, the way she looked behind the wheel of his car with her sunglasses on. The way her touch makes him squirm now, trailing from his arm to his bare chest. He's only known her four days. “I was hoping these would still be clean in the morning.”

\------------------------------------------------------

“Wake up, Derek.”

He's groggy, his eyes aching just from the weak glow through his eyelids. All the tell-tale signs that he's slept too long and hard, down for the count for more than six hours at one time. The sheets have wrinkled beneath him uncomfortably, and he misses one, two beats before he notices he only knows this because he's naked against them.

Blinking awake to the barrel of a gun against his forehead isn't on his list of favorite mornings.

“Ah,” Braeden warns him when he moves to scramble backwards. “Don't move. Even you won't heal from a bullet to the brain.” He freezes, heart in his throat, knowing it shows on his face just as much as it's rolling off him in waves – pure panic. “That's right. I know what you are. I haven't decided yet if Derek is your real name, though. There's no Derek in the files, but I'm starting to think there's a lot your little _watchers_ don't know. So which is it? Are you RJ or Derek? I know you're not your brother Foster. I'd know him anywhere.” She cocks her head back, showing off the thin scars. His fingers flex instinctively and he can see it so clearly – claws dragging through flesh. His stomach turns.

“They aren't my brothers,” he begins when he finds his voice. “I wasn't raised with them; I'm not like them.”

He swears she almost pulls the trigger on him. “Just because you can play nice doesn't mean you are. I'm pretty sure when it comes to you six, nature matters a hell of a lot more than nurture. Those eyes run in the family.” She tilts her head at him with an air of pity, like she knows that's check and mate. Derek can't remember slipping up last night, not even flat on his back with Braeden above him in all her naked glory. She's still as bare as the day she was born now, and he wishes he could laugh at how similar it is in the end – pinned, at her mercy, hoping for kindness, or at least to be able to catch his breath. “Where were you headed when we met?”

“Beacon Hills, California,” he admits swiftly. “The place that I was born. The place my parents died.”

“The place you killed them?”

It cuts despite the fact that she doesn't know what she's saying. “The place they died,” he repeats. “In our home, in a fire. Both of my parents and most of the rest of my family. Burned to death.”

“You weren't going to pay your respects. What else is in Beacon Hills? Are you meeting Agent McCall?”

Derek doesn't know who that is. He considers bluffing, but thinks better of it. The metal of the gun is starting to warm against his skin, but he can't forget it nonetheless. “No. I got a tip that there might be more...people like me. In town.”

“Project Lycaon?”

He swallows, minutely shakes his head. “Callisto.”

###  _lies_

“And how is our little Benjamin doing?” Kate rests her wine glass on the counter, unimpressed and prepared to claim she doesn't drink if push comes to shove. “Are fifteen-year-old boys redeemable after all?”

Jennifer's laugh is breathy and honest, as soft around the edges as the woman herself. “He's bright,” she says, disgustingly earnest. “And I don't know many teenaged boys who'd agree to so much schoolwork over the summer. Is his....”

The frown that's expected from her won't come naturally, but faking it in a pinch has always been in her skill set. “His condition,” she finishes, dropping her voice to the respectable tone for pity gossip.

“Right. Is it time-sensitive? Your father seems in a hurry for him to get his diploma.” She draws deep from her wine glass, like the poor life expectancy of a boy like Ben is something that needs drinking away. “I think he could finish in eighteen months. If that's soon enough. And if you keep me on.” She's flushing, and Kate hopes it isn't the wine.

Ben, of course, needs to finish up his education so they can get him off the grid. As long as the state is keeping up with whether he's in school, that's a little extra scrutiny they could really do without. Ben Argent should be little more than a blip on the radar – birth certificate and high school diploma. No voting registration, no marriage certificate, no credit card or loan applications. Anything to keep the government's pointy little noses out of this until everything is ready. Then they'll have their own little wardog, an obedient abomination. More than one, too, if the rumors stirring in town are true. Who'd have thought she might have a chance to add animal husbandry to her list of responsibilities?

Kate can never remember what Ben's condition is actually supposed to _be_ , so she moves the conversation along by, god help her, getting Jennifer talking about herself. She hasn't been in town even as long as Kate's been back, but her apartment looks lived-in, what her sister-in-law would call homey. Jen does the decorating, she says, when she's not with Ben or giving SAT prep seminars. Her wife (and isn't that a surprise - one that could work in her favor if she's lucky) does something with money that Kate doesn't even pretend to care about; they moved here from Portland for her job. Beacon Hills used to be a dying town, slowly wasting, but things are coming back to life here in a big way. It'll be fun to watch it burn one day.

Coming home to the compound is a relief after being given the nickel tour of the shoebox apartment, complete with empty pale yellow room, a future nursery that Jennifer calls spare storage. Kate's never been so pleased to see her own home and, even more, the steel doors and grey walls of the level beneath it. She checks in on Ben and Lydia to make sure they're not up to anything that might get one of them in trouble. She knocks on the clear glass of the observation window and grins, waving, when she finds them throwing knives at the anatomically correct targets lined up at the far wall. Kate can practically see Lydia's heart beating out of her chest when she smiles back, finger slipping on the blade in her distraction. She paints her lips red with the blood and licks them clean, arcs the knife through the air and nails the hollow of the throat of her target. It's enough to give Kate a laugh as she climbs the stairs two by two, shouting for Chris.

Her brother's advice is always not to encourage any little infatuations. She's almost certain he spent months contriving reasons for Allison and Lydia to be alone below ground level before they finally fell into one another. Lydia's crush on Kate is insignificant and amusing, and she'll egg it on as much as she -likes. She'd been that way when she was younger, though her toys were mainly boys in those days, and she's still the same now with a new target in sight.

“It's strategically advantageous,” she insists, speaking Chris's language like it’s second nature after all these years of his frills and fuss. “The closer she is to us, the less likely she is to fall for anything your son might try.”

Chris scoffs. “That thing is not my son. Allison is my blood, my successor. Ben is an insurance policy.” He sells it so good, her dear brother, no matter how little he means it. His wife carried the little monster, and she has less regard for it, conveniently out of the house when Jennifer comes calling and Ben is brought to the study for schoolwork. “At any rate, there are other ways to take care of that problem. If his 'symptoms' are psychological, we can write off anything. Compulsive lying, delusions, a need for attention...we have our bases covered, Kate. Leave the tutor alone.”

“Oh, but Chris,” Kate pouts, batting her eyelashes at him. “She's just so darn cute.”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

There's beer the next time she visits the apartment. Also, a pair of black platform flipflops next to the door, worn in and weathered in a way she's sure Jennifer would never stand for.

Wifey is home.

Kate came armed with a few very official-looking papers and a couple more handwritten, forged in Ben's tight, careful cursive – modeled almost perfectly after Allison's. Thank God she'd taught him to write, or they'd have been shit out of luck on a match convincing enough for Jennifer, who checks over his work four days a week.

They go through the motions, Jennifer covering her mouth and exclaiming over the disturbing imagery in the pages 'from the boy's diary' and humming and nodding when appropriate over the sham doctor's recommendations. She's quick to agree to all of the new precautions – not asking about the boy's home life or what he'd like to be when he's older, avoiding controversial books and subjects if at all possible. Enough to keep him quiet and not upset him about his circumstances. About his _condition _.__

 _ _Conversation has slipped to how Jennifer had come to be offered the job after she'd helped train Lydia to conduct PSAT tutoring for the underclassmen at Beacon Hills High; Kate's heard every word of this story from Lydia and Gerard themselves, but Jennifer tells it with such enthusiasm she can't be bothered to stop her. She seems excited (overly so?) about how bright Lydia is, what a good influence she must be on Allison, whose grades and test scores have left something to be desired by her own account.__

 _ _“She's had a rough few years,” Kate finds herself explaining, trying to find an excuse to cover for the shock of her finding out the truth about the boy in the basement, her docile pet of a baby brother. She doesn't have to seek out the lie after all, though, because the bedroom door swings open.__

 _ _Kate's hand twitches toward the taser concealed inside her jeans at the sight: bare feet smooth and clean but clawed, red eyes that bring her back a decade to the rotting leaves stench of the preserve being blotted out by smoke. She's heard of them, the pre-Lycaon experiments, running loose off the grid. If she kills it now, she'll have to take Jennifer, too, and the cleanup will be hell even with her sister-in-law's help and keen eye. The noise alone could sell her out. Counting down her seconds to act, she scans the tiny kitchen for any advantage – a frying pan, a butcher's block.__

 _ _“Kali,” Jennifer says warmly, holding out her hand even as she curves herself into the sturdy edge of the bar. They touch, and Kate zeroes in on their parting mouths when they kiss. The fangs peeking out are barely sharp, gently curved so as not to slice into her lover's lips. Kate's heart slows. With a clearer head, she registers the dull red of the woman's eyes, no trace of that telltale luminescence. She's not a hybrid. She's another kind of freak entirely.__

 _ _Kate holds out her hand for shaking, 'howdy neighbor' smile plastered to her face. “How nice to finally meet you!”__

 _ _\---------------------------------------------------------------__

 _ _They've been rolling into town a handful at a time for months, and the Argents can't possibly watch all of them, even with their foot in the door with local law enforcement. Most of them are only kids, anyway. No-backbone parents these days raising their kids like they have nothing to lose, letting them run wild. The hair, the contacts, they can take it back when they're older and understand that it's not so fun, being different from everyone else. Some of the poor bastards, though, will grow old with the ink under their skin and the holes in their body. Kali will be an old woman someday, gummy smile interrupted by fangs.__

 _ _Some of the freaks, though, know what they're imitating. Some of them want to do more than imitate, and for a while now they've known the wannabe animals flock to the Jungle to meet.__

 _ _Kali handles the books for the club.__

 _ _It's a lucky break for them. Gerard, of course, insists this was all part of the plan since the day he hired Ben's new tutor, after the unfortunate disappearance of the last. Planned or not, Kate has slipped herself into the pocket of the women that will be most valuable to her in this town. Fucking them is just a perk. Their bed smells overwhelmingly of lilacs, and Kali is suspicious of her, always. Jen thinks they get along just swell, of course, which suits them all fine and makes the sex good as long as Kate isn't looking into those red, red eyes.__

 _ _Lydia likes to call them Kate's girlfriends. Maybe it's not the word she likes the best, but she can't exactly complain.__

###  _ _ _infra-red___

 _ _Braeden, of course, is behind the wheel for the rest of the drive to Beacon Hills. She goes slow, and Derek navigates from the map in his mind, taking a few turns that send them the long way around out of pure spite. She has questions, and he might be doing her a favor, giving her time to learn everything (or almost everything) he knows before the cross into what may or may not be a danger zone, according to her own independent intelligence.__

 _ _“There were eight of you,” she reiterates. “I nearly died for these files. If they're not accurate, I'm fucked. There were sixteen viable embryos. Four didn't take, three didn't complete gestation, and one was saved for future research.”__

 _ _Derek shrugs. The minutiae mean nothing to him. “I don't know what to tell you. Someone lied, or got lied to. I exist.”__

 _ _She eyes him, crumpled jeans and dingy tank top, feet on the dashboard because he can't bring himself to care at the moment. “Obviously,” she deadpans. “If they don't know you exist, why did you have a monitor? They're assigned by the program.”__

 _ _“Peter said – and I'd not usually take him at his word, but he was about to die, at the time – that the doctor who saw my mother through her pregnancy had him keep an eye on me. That there had been some...concerns. My mother would be too biased to report accurately about them. So Peter filled out questionnaires about me. About my sister. Obviously they never made it to Lycaon, or to the army at all.” And if that's not the only lucky break Derek ever got in his life... It's been hard enough on him trying to keep what's left of his family out of the clutches of the fanatics that started the fire. He's sure they know he made it out, that he wasn't the only one. Whether it's his precautions or that they just don't care, no one's bothered the three of them in years. Maybe they have better things to do.__

 _ _The rhythmic tapping on the steering wheel is ten times louder than it should be for him in the quiet of the car, windows up and radio off. She's driving him nuts. He stays quiet. “They killed two of you before their tenth birthdays. Did you know that?” He didn't. He wouldn't put it past them, not when they took the time to create...him. What he is. “They went completely feral. Got put down. They incinerated one, buried the other in pieces to see if anything would happen. You rot in the ground just like anyone else would.”__

 _ _Derek's not sure if she's trying to hurt him or not. The gnawing in his stomach comes anyway, so deep he knows it's always been in him. He doesn't want to die. As far as he can tell, that's a human urge, something he shared with his parents – the ones who raised him. It had flared in him that night, lit by the fire. Cora would be dead without it, and him along with her, Laura alone in the world with no idea why. If it is to do with what they did to him before he was born, before he was even inside his mother, well...he's glad for it. “I'm sure I do. I'd rather no one find out any time soon. None of that matters to me. They obviously don't know they're missing me, so they don't know to look for me.”__

 _ _“And I ran into you in a random truck stop. What happens when you run into someone still working for them?” She references it casually, two steps removed from her own past. “What happens when someone lucks up and sees a familiar face that needs taking out? Or, you know, you might get lucky. They might cut you open a little and see what happens. They can always use more research.”__

 _ _“Look, I get what you're trying to say here, but you know what? They lied to you; they lied about you. They kicked you out. If they're your priority, fine. But what I care about is protecting my sisters – my perfectly normal sisters who both belonged to my parents, legally and genetically – and whether these girls in town are who they seem to be. I need to get to them before...anyone else can.”__

 _ _The city limits sign gives Derek a lump in his throat. He can't tell her where to go, where to stop now. She'll steer them to a motel, most likely, as trashy as the first three they'd shared. She won't give him free reign to go places on his own, the places he needs to see while he's here. Braeden takes a right where he needs a left, to the part of town that means nothing to him – the strip malls, gas stations.__

 _ _“Pawn shop,” he says dully. “Why are we at a pawn shop?”__

 _ _She swings herself out of his car like she owns it, slipping her shades back on even though the sun is low, the sky purpling. “I'm clean out of ammo. Seems like something that might come in handy.”__

 _ _“Oh.” That's reasonable enough. Except- “But this morning you...”__

 _ _She grins at him with all her teeth, tongue tracing over the tiny gap between the two in the front. “Are you coming in or not?”__

 _ _\----------------------------------------------------------------------------__

 _ _The remnants of the house are only getting uglier and bleaker with time. Derek feels like it shouldn't even be here any longer, crumbled to ash or knocked down by the local government, who supposedly hadn't wanted the house built to begin with. He feels about as weak as the parts of it still holding themselves up, standing here without Laura, Braeden's eyes boring into him as she leans against the hood of his car.__

 _ _“Well, you wanted proof.”__

 _ _“And you really didn't set it?”__

 _ _Derek flexes his fingers, swallows the desire sink claws into the ground, into himself. He focuses on how pissed he is that anyone would say such a thing. Moral outrage, it turns out, is a completely human emotion. “I was too old to be playing with matches. And why would I kill my family intentionally? I barely got my younger sister out. I call her every day; do you think I wanted her dead?”__

 _ _“What about the other one?”__

 _ _He turns back to her, her cool expression enough to have him stalking back to the car. This is worse than being here alone. “Who, Laura? She lived on the first floor. She got herself out. She's the one that called the fire department.”__

 _ _“The other _younger_ sister. You said Peter monitored you and your sister. If Laura and Cora are human...”__

 _ _The lines of his mouth feel tight and wrong when he smiles in a place like this, a place made of nothing but dead memories. He opens the passenger door, resigned to his fate of being relegated to shotgun in his own car, and scorches his palms on the sun-warmed metal of the roof to feel something.__

 _ _“Why do you think I'm here?”__

 _ _\------------------------------------------------------------------__

 _ _They're on their way back to the motel when he sees it. Well outside of the main part of town or even the streets with the nice houses in rows, another kind of normal life he never lived. The Hales, his mother had always said, liked their privacy. Derek can't keep a secret to save his life in the moment as he shouts for Braeden to stop, half ready to bail out of the moving car if she's not fast enough.__

 _ _She murders his brakes, but they grind to a halt with the gate still in sight. He can barely see the house from here, shrouded by trees and far back from the road, but he doesn't need to. His senses on overload, he can hear the little inhale from Braeden when she turns to find the glow in his eyes, heart racing from something almost but not quite like fear.__

 _ _The house was always here. He'd driven past it on the way to school, windows down, enjoying the new freedom of the solo ride. There was supposed to be some clause to this gift that said he would drop his sisters off at the elementary school every morning, but Cora thought he was gross and refused to get into the car with anyone but Laura, even though she was a senior who didn't have class until ten. Malia, well, she went where Cora went for the most part, and Laura let her sleep in until the last moments, the ten minutes she needed to throw on something relatively clean and pour a bowl of cereal for the ride.__

 _ _No one ever seemed to think it was weird, the way she never spilled a single splash of milk.__

 _ _It was empty as far as he knew, just some place that no one had the money for around here. Huge even compared to his own house, imposing from hundreds of yards away. There were never any stories of kids his age breaking in, though, not the way they did with the abandoned mall or the empty bank. The house and even the property stayed clean and well-kept. Realtors, he'd thought at the time. People who wanted to make sure that house looked good in case some idiot from out of town decided Beacon Hills was a decent place to live.__

 _ _There's no marker on the mailbox other than the house number, and Derek guesses they didn't need it. Not with the huge, steel double A that graces their gates, announcing themselves to the world as loudly as possible. Because they can. Because they think there's nothing to fear.__

 _ _They're wrong.__

 _ _He'll get back into the car for now, tell Braeden to drive, urge teeth and claws back into their hiding places. Later, he'll even have recommendations for takeout, the names and sometimes the numbers coming back to him. They're booked under the same false identity Braeden – he's starting to doubt it's her real name – has on her credit card, and though she's been seen around town, Derek has flown under the radar. He has the element of surprise.__

 _ _No matter what else happens here, Argent Arms is going to get what's been a long time coming.__

###  _ _ _monster wonderland___

 _ _Derek Hale, 25, presumed Lycaon subject 9. Six feet tall at a glance and weight unknown; alterations in body structure skew weight in relation to height and appearance. Verified enhanced auditory and visual abilities, presumed to extend to other senses, including proprioception. Hair dark brown, eyes hazel (red), and stubble that left a burn that Braeden still feels between her thighs like a brand.__

 _ _The sex itself hadn't been the line between mission and misconduct. Even with her own telephoto pictures of Foster and grainy surveillance camera shots of two or three of the others, she needs more than a resemblance to confirm and, if necessary, kill. What little of the actual research files she has lists increased heart rate and emotional response as triggers for expression of altered characteristics. Braeden's done worse than fucking an attractive man to get what she needs, even if he isn't – strictly speaking – a man. No, the line had been falling asleep to the sound of his even breathing in the dark, bodies touching. It's like dozing off behind the wheel or giving the game away too soon, forfeiting her advantage.__

 _ _On the bright side, Derek hadn't seemed to notice. He's been professional almost to a fault. The facts of the fire, of his monitor (uncle), of what little he knows about himself and the others that he's learned secondhand or from experience. He gives them to her with as little emotion as a guy like him can manage, and as a thank you she ignores his occasionally misty eyes. She doesn't have any parents either, but maybe it's not quite the same. Who knows how these subjects work psychologically? Whatever was being tortured or tested out of the others was further in than she'd been able to go without losing her freedom or her life. The scars on her throat and four days with Derek Hale are the most she has to go on when it comes to these experiments as people.__

 _ _Braeden would've expected him to be more hollow than he is, if she'd hazarded a guess. She watches him slip through lust, fear, anger, heartbreak; his mouth goes soft around the names of his sisters. The remaining family, she thinks, is the key to the perceived differences between him and his military-raised brothers. Duplicates. Clones. Her mind won't settle on a way to reference the absurdity of it even after years of hunting. Derek was raised as a person, not a science project. He had a childhood and an adolescence, a first crush and a car for his sixteenth birthday. He likes old movies and bad indie music.__

 _ _He likes burritos, as evidenced by the line she's standing in. The kid in front of her sincerely tells the stressed fast food worker to 'just fuck him up' instead of ordering, and Braeden rolls her eyes. He must be a regular, though, because her hands seem to know just where to go as she builds an obscenely overstuffed burrito. He's got the mouth for it at least, as evidenced by the way he will not shut it while the poor girl hurries to finish and get him out of her (fabulous, she notes) hair.__

 _ _Derek's very unsurprising order is printed neatly on the piece of flimsy motel notepad paper in her hand. She passes it to the harried girl and gets herself one of the actual named items on the menu to move things along more quickly. The loud boy her age is still talking, this time to his laptop, as he tries to keep things from falling out of the end of barely wrapped burrito. Braeden glances at the girl's name tag as she's rung up, handing over the money with a quick, “Thanks, Erica,” and a smile.__

 _ _She's always been better at confrontation than pleasantry. The past four days should honestly have been harder to get through. The problem is that she's terrible at faking. She can pull off cop, stranded hitchhiker, anything that will help her get the things she needs, but playing nice with people who expect her to be a whole person is exhausting. She should be so fatigued of Derek by now that heading back to the motel should seem unbearable.__

 _ _Braeden turns his radio on and heats the passenger's seat to keep the food warm on the short drive back. Brand New is still in the outdated CD player from the drive earlier, when it had ticked over to his regularly scheduled turn to pick the music. Her hand hovers over the source button to find something coming in on the antenna instead. The song is bleak, the musical version of the brooding look Derek develops when he thinks she's not watching.__

 _ _She cranks the dial and drives.__

 _ _\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------__

 _ _They eat on their separate beds, clothed and on top of the covers, with the tv on for background noise. Braeden's not sure yet if the television itself isn't equipped for color or if Derek is only interested in movies made in the thirties and forties. She's about to ask if he's seen any of those old mob classics when his phone rings. He looks to her nervously and she nods, taking the remote from the table between their beds to mute the sound.__

 _ _“Tate,” he says, sounding pleased. “Sorry, I've been driving so much all week. Is everything okay?”__

 _ _Braeden doesn't know that much about Tate as an individual. Derek talked more about Callisto as a whole, everything that Tate has discovered through what seems to be a lot of very illegal computer activity, aided by a girlfriend who clearly knows what she's doing. Derek has an uncanny ability to run into just the right (or wrong, as it sometimes turns out) people. Nine Lycaons in all the world, four Callistos and counting. So few, and almost as few people that would know to recognize them, yet the guy has run up on the Argents, Braeden, Tate, and even Foster, though that was intentional and indirect. She's pretty sure serendipity isn't genetic, but Derek is enough to make her question that.__

 _ _She watches the black and white images flutter by on the screen while he takes updates about the girls in town. There's visual confirmation now that at least the one Tate's been in direct contact with is also a subject; after a Skype chat to make sure, she's being carefully let in on what Derek calls 'clone business', though he makes air quotes as he does, as if he's unwillingly repeating it back. There's someone else involved – a kid, the girl's boyfriend – and he's been in contact with the other potential. He swears up and down that she must be a Callisto, no way that it's simply resemblance, and Tate seems inclined to believe it. It's all pretty positive news, beyond the fact that both of them are here in Beacon Hills, which Derek insists is unsafe for them all. He says goodbye with a weight on his shoulders that only seems to be getting heavier as he gets closer to what he'd originally come here for. That she can blame unequivocally on the Argents, and tomorrow they start to work on that portion of the problem. Together. That much she'd decided for him. They sound like people more monstrous than what Derek is by far. He knows she's killed one of his...duplicates, but only in self-defense. She'd have killed Foster if he hadn't swiped at the throat as if on pure animal instinct, and she wonders if he'll be the next to go feral.__

 _ _He finishes his double protein, double rice burrito and pads off to brush his teeth, leaving the door open so she can hear the repetitive scrubbing, almost soothing. She hears him take a long pause before he spits and knows he's ringing the drain; by his account, his father took no prisoners when it came to bathroom cleanliness, and not creating a sink ring was a lot easier than cleaning one up after the fact. After a second she follows him in, catches him at the tail end of brushing and wets her own toothbrush, not once avoiding his eyes in the dingy mirror as he starts to floss.__

 _ _“I, uh...” He hesitates, still holding the minty-smelling waxed string near his open mouth. “Could you look somewhere else?” Braeden raises her eyebrows at him and he flushes. “I have to make sure my...other...teeth are clean.”__

 _ _That doesn't click at first, but she laughs at him when it does. “I've had those fangs in my face, featuring a whole lot of dog breath and almost dying. I think I can handle you flossing yours on your side of the sink. You're tamer than a pet hamster.”__

 _ _“Am I?” Derek asks, and there's something mischievous about his tone, not earnest the way she'd have expected. “That's what you think?”__

 _ _“It's what I know. You were mewling like a little kitten when your eyes lit up last night. Get over yourself and floss your four extras, if that's what you need.”__

 _ _Braeden spits twice before he finishes flossing the normal teeth and braces his hands against the sturdy counter. His neck twitches hard to the right and pops, curving back to the left like he's working out a crick, and then she sees it. The contorting muscles in his face, maybe even bone, the eerily wide stretch of his jaw, and each of the four long, sharp teeth slowly appearing. Derek is careful of his fingers as he gives them a few strokes of his toothbrush and a couple passes with the floss, angling to see better in the less-than-optimal lighting of the tiny bathroom. After what feels like an eternity, he tosses the floss into the trashcan and sets his hands again, about to shift everything back into place.__

 _ _“Wait,” Braeden says, surprising even herself. “Don't.” She spits and rinses, washing her hands before she folds away her travel toothbrush. “Can I look at them?” Derek gestures at his face impatiently and she huffs at him. “Actually look at them. Come on, come sit on your bed. You shouldn't be on your feet anyway. This town is wearing you out, civilian.” She fists her hand in his shirt and drags him along with her back into the main room, pressing against his chest until he lets his knees give rather than falling straight back. Her hands stop millimeters from his face and then settle, thumbs curving along his jaw and fingertips reaching toward his temples. He opens his mouth a little wider, obliging.__

 _ _There are only four, like she'd thought – two on top and two more on bottom. The top pair are set ever so slightly wider so that they avoid truly overlapping. Braeden thumbs gently at his bottom lip, dragging it down until she can see their base in his gums. Either he's healed already or they don't hurt him coming out, because there's no trace of blood or wound, the fangs looking like they'd grown there and stayed, jutting in front of his natural human teeth.__

 _ _“Can you talk like this?” she asks him, curious from her last encounter. Foster hadn't bothered speaking once he'd shifted, which she'd appreciated in hindsight. Better than some kind of villain monologue right before he expected her to die.__

 _ _Derek nods, careful not to let the sharp edges inside his mouth brush her thumbs. She takes her hand away slowly, not sure if sudden movements are some sort of trigger. “A little,” he says when her fingers are all out of reach. It's slightly muffled, but not garbled, and she wonders if he's had much practice. “I'd rather not, if you don't mind.”__

 _ _She backs off another step. “Go ahead and do your thing. I just wanted to see where they come from.”__

 _ _The whole process happens in reverse, and Derek looks relieved when his face reverts to normal. He obviously doesn't like most of the things that come with being what he is, though he's admitted he's grateful for others. “There are pockets,” he says, dragging his lip down again and beckoning her to lean in. A barely-there dip in the gum, just in front of and beneath his other teeth. Not much to see. “I'm not sure what the hell happens if any of us have dental x-rays with a normal dentist, but I'm guessing the military didn't need to think about that with us. They were planning on shutting us up on one of their bases.”__

 _ _“Assholes.” It's casual and hopefully consolatory. “They'll get what's coming to them eventually. Government scandals always make great news, and I will be a very, very rich girl.” He smiles at her and she tilts her head, curiosity not sated. “What about the rest?” She drags her own blunt fingernails over her throat and feels the lines of her scarring, knows that Derek's own claws would follow the same trail if he wanted them to, perfectly spaced. “Your hands, and your eyes.”__

 _ _“Never my hands.” It's sharp, cracking out at her like a whip. “Too much room for accidents. Those are weapons. The teeth, too,” he adds, as if he knows she'd object. “But it's a lot easier to keep teeth away from everyone than my claws.”__

 _ _Braeden grins, pulling the neck of her t-shirt aside to reveal the purple mark on her shoulder. “You sure about that?” He looks chastised, no match for her amusement, and she sets her fingers under his chin to tip his head back so he'll meet her gaze. “You didn't answer. About your eyes.”__

 _ _Derek clears his throat, a deep rumble she can feel, on the edges of a growl. A part of what's strange in him that she can touch, almost. “I don't...have as much control over that part. Unfortunately.” He shifts against the cheap comforter, eyes still trained on hers – respect or obedience, or both. “Or I'd show you.”__

 _ _“Well,” she says, nudging in closer until his knees spread to let her in. “It's a good thing I already know how to make you show them to me, then.”__

###  _ _ _the quantum world___

 _ _“Stiles, when I said to take precautions, I didn't mean try to Skype me about this on public wifi.” She flips her braid back over her shoulder, making sure the buttons on her vest are in full view of the webcam. Stiles, as unthinking as he can be, has been incredibly consistent about pronouns as long as they're clearly in view. Luckily, Violet bought her a few dozen pins for making whatever she wants obvious that way. 'She/her' is flying proud today next to her near-constant “Wanted: Dead and Alive' cat button, because she's still not over how pleased she is to get science joke gifts from her girlfriend. “Are you literally in a Taco Bell right now?”__

 _ _Stiles gasps, hand over his heart, doing a poor job of looking mortally wounded. “How _dare_ you malign this fine burrito establishment? And I dunno where you've been getting your Taco Bell, but there's no free wifi at ours.”__

 _ _“Well, take your fucking burrito to go. Unless you're hiding Malia beneath that monster, she's not with you, and we can't talk about The Thing with you sitting there with – damn. Who's the cashier?”__

 _ _“I'm telling Violet you're checking out the local talent.”__

 _ _Tate flips the screen off with both hands. “You've said literally two words to Violet; I think I'm safe. Besides, I'm dating, not dead.”__

 _ _It takes five more minutes to get him to pack up his things, collect his new girlfriend, and drive home, and then Tate has spare time on her hands. She checks the mail, mostly because she likes to grab anything that's hers before her parents turn up. Inexplicably, they get angrier than her when she gets anything leading off with 'Ms. Tatiana...' even though technically all her school papers have her legal name and gender marker on them. It's not like they're wrong all the time, anyway. Sure, she'd appreciate a Mx. here and there, just because it's a valid title that should be used more. But it is what it is.__

 _ _There's no mail for her this time anyway. She drops the bills and circulars onto the kitchen table and grabs a bottle of Naked from the fridge; faux-healthy suits her today. Nothing too pressing is sitting in her email, and her homework for her summer course is going to take more time and attention than she actually has at the moment. The dilemma narrows down to work versus play, her gaze flicking from her phone to her laptop indecisively.__

 _ _Five minutes later, there are twenty selfies of her in her vest with nothing beneath, waistband of her boxer briefs peeking in at the edge of the frame. She's trying to decide which ones are the best to send to Violet when the new call comes in through Skype. “Are our nipples weird?” she asks Malia without looking up from her folder of pictures. “I feel like our nipples are weird.”__

 _ _Stiles makes a terrible honking noise that could be a laugh, if he were a donkey with a head cold. “Your nipples are great,” he asserts, and Tate takes the opportunity to glare at him as best she can. “I mean, Malia's...um.” He realizes he's digging himself a hole with the both of them, and shuts his mouth up tight for all of two seconds before he can move on. “We didn't call to talk about nipples.”__

 _ _“I don't know,” Tate teases. “I think comparing nipples is one of the perks of having a clone.” They both still squirm at the word, not used to hearing it outside of sci-fi. Abigail has been the same, though Tate's had far less chance to talk with her since she's effectively on lockdown. “Seriously, though. My Lycaon contact is in touch with me again and he is, like, right on your ass. Like, in town and actively looking. So you might wanna start wearing a baseball cap or something when you're out with the cuties if you don't want them finding out about all of this, still.” Which is fucking ridiculous, she doesn't add. She understands the urge to protect people who aren't tangled up in this, but Violet is about as tangled as someone can get, and Tate gets the feeling Scott and Kira are the same just from the way Stiles talks. Either they know and take the risk or they chance waking up one morning without the girl they love, never knowing where she's gone or why. Stiles wouldn't be able to hold it in, but the guilt of not saying something sooner would eat at him.__

 _ _Derek is in town on two orders of business at this point, but Tate steers around the whole Argent ordeal; it's messy and Malia is new to all of this. Tate hasn't even managed to get around to letting Malia know that the mysterious Lycaon contact she's been referencing is her brother. It doesn't feel like it's hers to tell, and Derek will track her down sooner rather than later to let her know himself. They can make their choices together then with all of the information that they have combined, and everyone will be better off for it – or at least that's what she's hoping.__

 _ _They spend a good half an hour arguing more about Scott and Kira (Scira is a good ship name, Tate thinks; it sounds like it could be a Pokemon) and whether they should be let in on all this business. The 'they could get hurt' argument falls painfully flat, though the newbies don't realize it. Any of them and anyone around them could get hurt at any time; hell, they could do the hurting themselves.__

 _ _Malia's only just learning that. Tate had been astonished to hear she'd never had even a single slip-up in her nineteen years. At least, not any she remembers, though if anything happened during those wicked toddling years, that's lost to them all. Derek might remember, or his older sister, but, for the most part, all of that information died with the older Hales. And so Malia has to learn how to activate the many alterations that come with being part of Project Callisto.__

 _ _They're still trying to find a reliable way to get her claws out. Sex is a bad idea, for obvious reasons, and Stiles has reported that even the most drawn-out teasing doesn't get her eyes glowing, so it probably wouldn't work anyway. Stiles had tried insulting Kira, but after a few weak attempts along the lines of 'sometimes she gets so excited you can't really understand her', they give up on that line of inducing the kind of rage that might help someone with less control.__

 _ _“Do it again,” she pleads with Tate. “You can do it so fast.” Tate's obliging if nothing else. In her head, she conjures the most vivid image of Donald Trump winning the 2016 presidential race she can manage, and before she can get to his horrible acceptance speech, her claws have slid out as easy as you please.__

 _ _Stiles sighs. “I still think it's disappointing they don't make that little snikt sound like Wolverine's.” He's been incredibly blasé about most of this, to the point that Tate and Violet are both more than a little annoyed. This shit is cool, man, and they may not understand it as well as they should, but clones are cooler than X-Men any day.__

 _ _Working their way through each of the triggers Tate knows about - based on the very scientific data collection of asking Derek and trying to recall all of her own – is going to take a long time, and some of them just aren't easy to recreate in their version of a lab setting. Fear is almost out of the question, considering Malia thinks bugs are cool and the one hybrid enhancement she _has_ picked up on quickly is the hearing. Stiles has been trying to sneak up and scare her for days, but his natural clumsiness and the sound of his feet as he creeps has made it impossible. Malia's incredibly hard to make angry as well, and no one wants to bring up anything that might get her really pissed.__

 _ _Tate eventually tells the story of when her younger brother irresponsibly decided to try the cinnamon challenge and sent her into a sneezing fit just preparing for it. She'd had to hide in her bedroom, the repeated sneezing ramping up her heart rate as she got more agitated and panicked, keeping her eyes electric blue and her mouth bulging with fangs.__

 _ _“Fuck you, okay, don't laugh. It could work for you. Cinnamon, pepper, any strong spice – your nose is really sharp, and it could help. Your diaphragm is gonna hurt for like six hours after, but at least you'll be able to figure out the place where the change is coming from and hold onto it.”__

 _ _They're still holding their bellies and cackling when Malia suddenly jumps a foot and abruptly ends the call, leaving Tate stranded on the other end. Scott came by, undoubtedly. Goddammit.__

 _ _She gets an email from Stiles later that night with a zillion and one (very scientific estimate) questions about all of this – how the clones were created, exactly how they were altered in a way that could not only give them retractable fangs and claws hidden beneath the surface but luminescent eyes and wildly shifting muscles and bones. The heightened senses at least, he tells her, are sort of feasible – if you consider hybridizing humans with animals feasible. This he'd extracted from Scott with a series of vague questions he'd pretended were spurred on by an old-school horror movie binge with Malia. Just another of the ways they make excuses for the time they spend together on Stiles's laptop.__

 _ _Tate attaches a 'not my division' gif to her empty reply to his email and shakes her head as she finally decides on which selfies to send to Violet – the ones without her nipples. For God's sake. She wants to be a physicist. It's Scott who can help them most on the science end of this, and they won't just fucking talk to him.__

 _ _Feeling her body tense with annoyance, she lies down for a while, eyes closed in the dark, and thinks about quantum theory. Religions have their mantras and even secular witches have their statements of intent; Tate has science and its endless questions and much more finite answers.__

 _ _Violet climbs through her window ten minutes later, and she decides that's an even better distraction.__

###  _ _ _red in tooth and claw___

 _ _They're tramping through the woods on a Saturday morning, and Scott has never been happier. Sure, he'd found Malia at Stiles's house last night when he'd been expecting some alone time – from the way they'd slammed the computer shut when he turned up, they'd been watching porn, most likely weird. And yeah, the days are starting to go by a little faster than he'd like, closer to the end of the summer and time to move. Kira will be at a different college and Malia, of course, there with her, even if she'll be working instead of studying. He'd insisted they go out early this morning and spend the day together, making this last, hoping more time now will mean more time later, instead of an end.__

 _ _He's actually pretty proud of himself for finding a part of the woods that Malia finds familiar but not troubling. They're well away from the remains of the Hale house, which Scott and Stiles have visited more than a dozen times alone together over the last decade. School breaks, boredom, looking at the proof of maybe the only interesting thing that's happened in this town, ever – they add up to a good reason to make the trek into the preserve. Some people say the fire was arson, that someone had purposely burned the place down. Stiles is one of them, and Scott's dad, too. Scott's not sure, but he can't bring himself to believe it. As long as it was an electrical fire, he's just visiting a cool old house with charred crumbling walls and stairs that Stiles had dared him to go up once when they were ten. He'd made it up four steps before he had to come back down, working himself into an asthma attack from nerves. The next summer, Stiles fell through the sixth step and broke his arm, and Scott felt lucky.__

 _ _“Hey, guess who I saw in town today?” he asks Stiles.__

 _ _“Your dad?” They both know he's been around again for his job, though they're not exactly sure what _exactly_ for. He lets Scott's mom know when he's around, the only real interaction between them anymore. Stiles says his dad doesn't have any cases open that would call for federal investigation, though, so Scott figures he's either talking the new graduates into criminal justice-related degrees or looking into something secret – money-related junk, probably.__

 _ _Scott shakes his head, though, because the Hale house doesn't make him think of his dad. “Sergeant Foster. Oh, no, wait, _Staff_ Sergeant Foster. He was really proud of his promotion when I said hi.” They'd run into Foster out at the Hale house remains before, curiously poking around like he'd never seen the place before. He probably hadn't, since he only seemed to come to town to talk to Scott's dad. Scott doesn't know all that much about the army or what kind of stuff they have going on with other government organizations. It's possible they're just buddies, too, though it doesn't seem likely with the big gap in their ages.__

 _ _“He still look like he stepped right off the Men's Health cover?”__

 _ _Malia laughs, looking over to them from where she and Kira are investigating some wildflowers, and Scott melts a little. She looks like she belongs out here, and when she looks at them that way, her face lighting up, he feels like he and Stiles belong out here with her. “Like he eats nothing but protein bars and works out for a living? Uh-huh. He's like, more built than ever. I think he was in a hurry, though. He didn't try to recruit me.”__

 _ _“Oh my God,” Stiles groans. “Why does he do that? I swear I was, like, twelve when he started that. You have asthma. I'm a conscientious objector!” Scott snorts at him and Stiles slaps him in the chest with the back of his hand, agitated. “I am! My whole conscience objects to risking my life for the chance to fuck up somebody else's!” Kira's giggling now, too, her hair falling into her face from where she's crouched, her Converse toe to toe with Malia's hiking boots. “Maybe he was meeting your dad, though, if they're both around. I kinda almost think they're fucking, sometimes.”__

 _ _That hadn't occurred to Scott at all, probably because it's not something he tends to think about on his own. His nose wrinkles, not at the idea of his dad having sex, but of him coming here to do it, in town where his (ex?) family is. He's about to bring that up when there's a loud rustling from the bushes just past where Malia and Kira are squatting. The girls go perfectly still while Stiles starts babbling again, only quieting when Scott's hand grips tight on his shoulder.__

 _ _The girl that peeks out from the leaves is...Malia.__

 _ _“Abigail?!” Malia, their Malia, asks.__

 _ _“No,” Stiles answers quickly, even if the question makes no sense. And come to think of it, wouldn't Malia know who someone is better than Stiles would, if that someone looks exactly like her? Her hair is shorter, soft brown, and she's kind of dirty, but... “That's not Abigail, I don't know who the fuck that is.” He's fumbling his phone from his pocket to take a picture.__

 _ _The new Malia doesn't like that. In between blinks, she's on them, Stiles’ phone smashed into a tree before he can even protest, though he does anyway. She stays close, after, tilts her head at them inquisitively. She looks between them, nose twitching minutely, and glances over her shoulder at Malia and Kira. “Mates?” she asks, voice rough, like she has a summer cold.__

 _ _She looks a little agitated when she doesn't receive an answer, and then she's wrapping her arms around Stiles, burying her face against his throat and heaving in breath like a drowning woman. “Mates,” she says again, more firmly this time, pulling away like she's satisfied.__

 _ _“Is anyone else freaking out?” Kira asks, and Scott feels that in his _soul_ , because Stiles is just standing there wearing that face he does when the gears are turning in his head. Malia, who should be the most panicked of all of them, looks more awed than anything. “Malia, you didn't have a twin. This isn't a book; I'm not buying the near-identical cousins thing.”__

 _ _“I was adopted,” Malia says quietly. “Before your parents. There's...family. Extra family.”__

 _ _The girl is at her side faster than Scott can process, and Stiles lets out a tiny awed breath beside him. They watch together as she lifts her hand to Malia's cheek; like this Scott can see that they're almost the same height, even. He does a double take when he realizes the slight gap between them is because this girl is barefoot, her feet caked with mud like she's walked through the creek bed that's nearby. “Sisters,” she says firmly, and Scott's heart stutters at the emotion behind it. He doesn't have siblings, can't imagine meeting one and just knowing, even if it were a twin, but this girl _knows_. Malia seems to be feeling it, too, trembling under her touch. Her hands are spotlessly clean, Scott notices, along with her face, standing out compared to her stained, ripped clothes and muddied limbs.__

 _ _“Who are you?” Stiles asks, voice not as bold and reckless as Scott would expect from him. “Do you know Tate?”__

 _ _She doesn't turn to him, addresses her sister when she does speak. “Malia,” she says, prodding at her with a pointer finger. “Moira,” she says, turning it on herself. “Sisters.”__

 _ _“If she's been living in the woods all this time, I quit.” Scott can't believe Stiles isn't throwing a shitfit over his phone, but maybe he's too stunned. They're all a little nonreactive right now, waiting for something to make sense. “Seriously, didn't Tate say the feral ones are dangerous? I don't wanna get my throat ripped-” Malia shoots him a glare and he freezes – and for good reason. “Malia, you're doing it. The thing, you're doing the thing!”__

 _ _“Not _now_ !” she wails, her hands going up to cover her eyes. Her blue eyes, so blue they glow even here in the daylight, even though she had brown eyes the last time Scott was close enough to kiss and take a look. The girl – Moira – pulls her hands away easily despite the fact that Malia seems to fight it. “Stop, they don't know, they don't-”__

 _ _Moira spins, her gaze no longer curious or loving, focused on Scott and Stiles, darting to Kira. “Mates,” she reiterates, angrily, and Scott is starting to freak out a little bit. He doesn't _mate_ with anyone. “Look,” she insists, and then her eyes are flaring, too, her lips parting to reveal teeth – vampire teeth, freaking fangs, stained a rusty red. She thrusts her hand out at them, flicking her wrist, and instead of her immaculate fingernails there are curved claws, similarly stained, like they've been covered in blood for so long and so often that the color won't fade.__

 _ _“Fuck.” Stiles's voice is higher than it's been since they were kids, breaking. “Fuck, that's terrifying in person, what the fuck.”__

 _ _“Okay,” Scott says, low and even as he can make his voice right now. “No sudden movements.” It works with animals, right? This is close to that? She has an open escape path, so they aren't cornering her, which is good. The fact that he's running through all these scattered facts – the more important, useful information slipping through the sieve of his alarm – over a human being who speaks English and might be Malia's sister? Not so good. “Maybe we can just...back out of here.”__

 _ _Kira is slowly nodding, but Malia and her lookalike have gone perfectly still. Not still like Scott, who still quivers despite his desire to not move a single muscle, but stone still, heads cocked. In opposite directions, but the resemblance – no, the perfect duplication – is uncanny. Malia looks paranoid, almost frightened, but Moira lets a smile split her face, bloodied teeth even more frightening in a grin. She turns back to Malia, rubs their cheeks together gently. “Again,” she says, like a promise. “Brother,” she says, pointing deeper into the woods, toward the creek she probably came from.__

 _ _She darts away with such ease that she might as well be skipping, and the clearing is perfectly silent for long moments. Malia's eyes fade to their usual brown, and her eerie stillness vanishes by degrees until she's slouching, looking almost – relieved? Now? After that?__

 _ _“I'm gonna fucking kill Tate,” Stiles says gravely. “Someone loan me a phone.”__

###  _ _ _ye olde hope___

 _ _Woods smell...full. Deer blood smell, flowers flowers flowers, rot, humans. Not humans. Like him. Smoke. Old smoke.__

 _ _Cold clean water, cold feet. Someone running. Toward him. Just one, not human. Fast. Like him. Light feet, deer blood smell. Girl. Girl like him. Wait.__

 _ _\---------------------------------------------------------------------__

 _ _Moira can feel him, hear him. Not smell. Water and wind washing it away. Rumbling, rumbling, letting her find him. Wild brother, not like Malia. Like her. Run faster, find him, help.__

 _ _He's tall, bare, face animal and body man. Ring around his neck, ugly red, wrong, not healing. She touches it, fingers on his throat, not long enough. He snarls, doesn't move though. Moira whines at him, frets. “Hurt?” He nods. “Heal.” A shake of his head. It will scar.__

 _ _His hands over hers, reaching all the way around, squeezing tight. He sniffs, nods toward the trees, squeezes again. Moira moves, touches at her wrists, remembering. Rope burn. Hurt. Hungry.__

 _ _“ _Heal_.” He shakes his head, angry. She sighs. “Hunt?” Claws to show him, still red, deer blood. He rumbles, happy, nods. Good. Hunt. Help. Eat and then find the rest.__

###  _ _ _handsome devil___

 _ _RJ slips his sunglasses on as he gets out of the car, just in case. The longer hair, shades blocking his face, grinning like he owns the world – no one should mistake him for that crew cut asshole of a brother of his. It's a short trip from the Camaro to the hotel door, anyway, and an even shorter trip from the door to the elevator.__

 _ _Foster's shaving in the room, obviously on his best behavior to meet McCall, and RJ spooks him on purpose, watches the blood roll down his chin as the cut heals. “Your fed boyfriend is late. I'm late, so he's way fucking late, man.”__

 _ _“Boyfriend,” the guy grumbles, mopping up his blood with the clean white hotel towel and getting back down to business. “He's my superior. He deserves a little respect and presentability. You're the one fucking a townie.”__

 _ _Licking his lips slow and lascivious in the mirror for his own benefit, RJ laughs. “Fuck yeah I am. I love those summer before college girls, man. They wanna make sure they know _everything_ before they go. And I mean everything. You know that sweet thing was a virgin when we rolled into town? Last night she let me-” Someone lets themselves into the room, and Foster sags with relief. “Saved by the bell, you bastard. You're hearing the whole story after he leaves.”__

 _ _McCall's setting up the machine at the desk when they wander into the bedroom together. “Men,” he says without looking up. “Anything I should know before we get started?”__

 _ _Foster takes a seat in the desk chair, looking up at the FBI agent. What an obedient little fuck. “Well, sir, Lycaon 6's termination failed.” No fucking kidding. RJ's still got puncture wounds that were once bone-deep, slowly healing now. “We have some concerns that he might have followed us here.”__

 _ _“Understood,” McCall answers. “And what about you, number four?” he asks, peeling clear plastic from electrical leads, applying them precisely on Foster's skin. “Any indiscretions I should know about, in case there's been an...incident?”__

 _ _RJ shoves his glasses up on top of his head, always eager to watch this, though he dreads his own turn afterward. “Just one, sir. Erica Reyes. No chance of an incident, though; she's way more worried about her getting knocked up than even you are, I think.”__

 _ _McCall nods and engages the machine, Foster's hands gripping the arms of the chair almost tight enough to crack in anticipation. “You'll fill out her information for me as usual. The last thing I need is another one of you to chase because someone's condom broke.” There's a pause as he shuffles his papers, pen at the ready, before he flashes an expectant grin at Foster. “We're ready. Shift for me, soldier.”__

 _ _Everyone knows that Foster's started to slip. Clean-cut, baby-faced, respectable Foster. It makes RJ giddy with irony. He got told so many times that his 'habits' – getting a little wasted, fucking around – would send him down the spiral faster. Never mind that 3 and 7 had been put down for it before they were even teenagers, gone too wild to control. A threat. It's got fuck-all to do with how they act. Nobody knows what makes them unravel the way that they do, and RJ is sure as fuck going to enjoy himself before he has to take a bullet through the head or get cut clean in half. Leon hadn't; he'd been a good boy like Foster, the two of them closer than the rest thanks to that unfailing loyalty to the fucking government. Now Leon is nothing but number six, a target. Foster had been the one to suggest they hang him, and now look where they are – constantly on alert for possible attack, whether on civilians or themselves.__

 _ _McCall puts Foster through the paces – holding the shift through the surges of electricity, forcing it back through the pain. He does fine in the broad tests, forcing himself through it. Fine control is shot, though. He tries to pull his claws in one at a time and fails twice. McCall scribbles worried little notes in his precious paperwork. He can shift eye without teeth, but not teeth without eyes, and his claws seem to have a will of their own, appearing and disappearing while he's trying to control other enhancements. Finally, the machine switches off, and McCall gestures vaguely. Foster rips the leads off and stomps into the bathroom.__

 _ _“Well, he's a little rude today, isn't he?” RJ asks, taking his seat in the desk chair.__

 _ _He passes with flying colors, like always. He hopes he'll be the last left alive. That'd show them. McCall shuts the machine down and starts to pack it away before going back to the papers in his folder, obviously comparing the results between the two of them, face grim.__

 _ _“Doesn't look good,” he points out unnecessarily, and RJ shrugs at him. “You don't care? This is stage one of deterioration, bordering on stage two. He's got two or three years if he's lucky. I can put in a good word and imply that it's the stress from attempting to terminate number six, but ultimately I have no control over their decision.”__

 _ _“To be honest with you sir,” RJ says seriously, “I'm more worried about six than two. I'm sure you understand. Not to mention I caught a scent today that I think you'd be interested to hear about.” Pride roils in his belly. “Our little problem is here in town, and she smells like one of us.”__

###  _ _ _seven nation army___

 _ _They're approximately a block and a half from Jungle. Close enough that Ben, wide-eyed and clinging to Lydia, can hear the goings-on inside. It had been Lydia's idea to sneak him out for this; Allison had objected at first, but had seen the light in the end. He's an advantage, always has been, no matter what Grandpa says about him not being ready. His ears are as sharp as his claws, and though he's never hurt anyone, she's sure he could. That he would, for one of them. He still thinks he's her brother, after all, and something ties him to Lydia that Allison doesn't understand. It isn't love. Fear, almost, but something more.__

 _ _“We can access the basement without going into the club,” she announces, carefully sliding her garter further up her thigh. It's tight enough to bite into the flesh there, but it will hold the whole thing up instead of sagging with the weight of her knives. “The first hall is nothing but offices, as far as Jennifer's said; beyond the door is where we'll find the storage. We can use that for interrogation.”__

 _ _“Alternate exits?” Lydia asks, wedging a vial down between her breasts – poison or acid, likely, though Allison can't be sure which.__

 _ _Allison hums at her, checks her gun and sets the safety before she slips it into the thigh holster on her opposite leg. There's just nowhere to hide her bow in this outfit, and they hadn't been able to get the car; this is the best she can do with what she's got. “Exits up to street level at the opposite end – one for vehicles and one for personnel.”__

 _ _“What are we going to do?” Ben asks, eyes flashing red-green-red, telegraphing his anxiety. “Kali is human, Ms. Blake is human.”__

 _ _“We're counting on them knowing some animals like you,” Lydia says, eyes trained on her gun as she loads the clip. She misses the way he looks at her, wounded but unsurprised.__

 _ _He breaks the door handle with ease, dropping it into the dumpster just outside, and he seems bolstered by Allison's approving smile. It slips off her face as soon as he's no longer looking, closing his eyes to focus on the sounds inside. “Two in the offices,” he says certainly. “The storage is...I think it's soundproofed.”__

 _ _Lydia leads, red hair curling down her back and lips painted crimson, looking like she's wandered through the wrong door from upstairs in the club. She peeks her head into the first door that Ben indicates. Allison mentally thanks Kate for her information, and also the neat trick for muffling the clacking sounds of high heels. The man in the office meets her at the door, interest and concern showing in his (red) eyes.__

 _ _“I think you can help me, Aiden,” she says sweetly, biting her lip to draw his attention there, and then her knife is at his throat. “But not here.”__

 _ _They shuffle him through the thick metal doors into the wide open space. There's a somewhat familiar car parked here, and a few bulk pallets of something, likely soda for mixing cocktails upstairs, but it appears empty, otherwise. Lydia pushes the freak onto his ass in the middle of the room, watches him scramble backwards away from her until she plants her foot firmly against his thigh, pinning him.__

 _ _Ben is visibly panicking again – claws and fangs and the whole shebang this time - and Allison can't wait to say I told you so to her father. He's almost useless, afraid of even a weak stranger like this, a freak wannabe. It's the isolation; he doesn't know how to handle people outside of the compound. Allison calmly pulls her gun and aims it at the man, face grave. “You're going to tell us everything you know about Jennifer and Kali Blake.”__

 _ _He pales but shakes his head, a dark spot spreading at the crotch of his jeans when she flicks the safety off and brandishes the gun at him again. Lydia laughs, delighted, and moves her foot toward his knee to avoid the stain. There's a shout from behind them and Allison spins, scanning the room and gun at the ready.__

 _ _It's the girl. “Derek?” she asks, bewildered, staring at trembling Ben and his glowing blue eyes.__

 _ _Allison starts to squeeze the trigger.__

 _ _“No!” Three people move at once, and when the scuffle settles, Malia is snarling, shifted, over the shoulder of Scott McCall. Fuck.__

 _ _“Move out of the way, Scott,” she warns, heart thudding in her chest. The safety is off and her gun is pointed at her ex-boyfriend. This is the kind of thing her mother had always warned her about. She has to be calculating; her decisions must be cold and unemotional. She could wound Malia with a fatal shot to Scott. He would drop, and she would be unshielded, vulnerable. She could keep her eyes on the target and not those beautiful brown eyes going lifeless, a sweet, fragile human boy who loved her bleeding out by her hand. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. He doesn't move.__

 _ _“She didn't _do_ anything,” Scott shouts, his arms spread wide, holding Malia back. Allison had always heard the Callistos were stronger than the Lycaons pound for pound; it's more than the force of his arms that keeps the girl behind him.__

 _ _“She doesn't have to. She never should've existed. I'm just cleaning up someone else's mess.” Her gun hand wavers in a way it never would with her bow, and she swallows. This is bad. This is not what she'd wanted.__

 _ _She hears a click from behind her. Lydia steps forward – the sound of running as the pinned man is freed. Lydia turns coolly and shoots him in the leg, ignoring his scream of pain and retraining the gun on Scott. “Please, Allison, let me. I know you can't. You never could. We don't need him.” She's right. Allison doesn't need him. She'd had to make sure of that. Nip it in the bud, as her grandpa would say, before it bloomed and the inevitable thorns could grow. “If only it had been Stiles,” Lydia laments.__

 _ _Allison hadn't even noticed Stiles, but there he is, impotent rage written across his face. The girl beside him is Malia's sister, but only in the ways that Lydia is her own. Choking on a gasp, she notices the girl's bright orange eyes. With Lydia's gun on Scott, she points her own at Kira.__

 _ _Ben _howls_ , absolutely howls in a way that she hasn't heard for years, and while all of their eyes are turned to him, the exit door slams open.__

 _ _Everything is gunfire and shouting, snarling, Lydia's voice a piercing shriek. There are words in the mix – Allison hears Ben calling her name while a voice she doesn't know demands that someone else stop firing. Her back hits the ground with a loud slap, and one of her knives gouges into her thigh, making her grit her teeth. She yanks her dress up and pulls it from the wound, throws it at the woman in leather approaching. The man – eyes red like Ben's – reaches as if from nowhere to snatch it out of the air with clawed fingers, hurling it across the room and into the wall with a roar. Her blood is dripping and her heart thumps faster, more blood spilling and indecision making her freeze.__

 _ _She feels the butt of a gun crack her skull, and everything goes black.__

###  _ _ _demons___

 _ _Deborah is reading over Marin's detailed reports on Callisto 1 and her continued psychological deterioration; her recent isolation from her main companion has rapidly sped the process despite regular therapy. Marin is such a reliable monitor – objective and neutral, sharing her valuable professional opinion on behavioral changes. She doesn't seem to think that Abigail is going feral, at least not in the traditional sense. Still, she's unstable, and Deborah makes a note to send back orders on keeping her somewhat sedated at all times, if possible. Eichen House is a very controlled environment that they can manage to get their hand in. Thank God the girl hadn't chosen prison.__

 _ _A call comes in on her headset and she sweeps her hair behind her ear before she answers, readjusting the earpiece. “Go for Deborah.”__

 _ _“Our subject is MIA.”__

 _ _Deborah's hand hesitates over the security button that can summon a team to her in seconds, ready to head out and handle the issue. “Julia, are you telling me you've lost your only charge?”__

 _ _The connection crackles and Deborah can hear cursing, just loud enough for Julia's phone to pick up and heightened by her own enhanced hearing. “Kali, please,” she says, muffled, like she's put her hand over the phone. “There were unexpected circumstances. I was on my way to meet the undocumented Callisto and her associates as scheduled. There was an altercation already in progress when I arrived.”__

 _ _“Between Malia and her partners?”__

 _ _“The Argents were there. Just the young ones, as far as I could tell. They brought Ben with them. This can't have been authorized by Chris and Gerard. They're doing the best they can to isolate the boy into going feral; they would never let him leave home that way. He shifted because he was alarmed, I think. Malia went, too, when her boyfriend's life was threatened.”__

 _ _“Stiles?” Deborah asks, restoring the window that holds pictures of the little group. Malia's own baby pack. How quaint.__

 _ _“Scott,” Julia answers. “Continued evidence that her human accomplices are a threat to our attempts to study and control.”__

 _ _Deborah sighs and mashes the security button after all, knowing something has to be done. “So they have Ben? The four of them?”__

 _ _“Actually...”__

 _ _It's one hell of an incident report to fill out. She's had to activate multiple teams – one to track the getaway vehicle and another to raid the Argent compound with the information Julia's collected during her time in the position. Deborah stares at her computer screen, the blinking cursor and her current unfinished notes:__

 _ _ _Single survivor of second Lycaon wave in custody of undocumented first wave Lycaon, presumed to be Derek Hale. Enhanced accomplices include undocumented Callisto Malia Hale Yukimura and alleged second generation hybrid Kira Yukimura – project unknown. Single human accomplice is armed and extremely dangerous; see Army discharge record 117BR3A7E on dishonorable discharge of Lt. Denmore AKA Braeden Marshal (surname varies).___

 _ _ _Team of six dispatched on live capture mission for enhanced subjects; deadly force not authorized.___

 _ _ _Team of four dispatched for rendezvous with Agent Baccari and partner for infiltration of Argent Arms compound; deadly force authorized upon non-cooperation. Baccari advises no undue force be placed on Kate Argent or Argent associate Lydia Martin.___

 _ _ _With a sigh, she presses send and waits as the email bypasses all the security checks necessary, not closing the window until she receives confirmation that the report is present in Dr. Valack's inbox. He'll relay the messages up the chain for her, surely, and start running checks on which of the pre-1985 trials the Yukimura girl seems to be an indirect product of. They have nothing to go on beyond appearance – both natural and enhanced – but Dr. Valack is diligent and has abundant records of the early successes and failures before Project Lycaon was initiated.___

 _ _ _She's just about to write up a second correspondence to Agent McCall, who might still be in town, about handling his son and, more importantly, his loud-mouthed boyfriend. The amount of scouring she'd had to do on the internet to disable his accounts and delete his posts that spoke about project details in plain sight had been extensive, though some of them had been removed or redacted before she managed to get to them. Likely Callisto 3's work.___

 _ _ _“Deborah,” her assistant buzzes over the intercom, voice quivery with nerves. “You have a monitor here to see you.”___

###  _ _ _ _the mother we share____

 _ _ _“I'm sorry,” Kira repeats as often as she can. The call with Scott has been rough; she's barely holding herself together. “I'm sorry, I don't know when we'll be back. No, I can't put Malia on the phone. She doesn't know any more than I do. No, don't, don't give Stiles the – hi, Stiles.” Her nerves are frazzled. She hasn't slept or eaten. “Yes, I know that you could've – no. No, I swear, there's no room for you in this car. Ben is asleep sitting up in the back.”___

 _ _ _“You could've put me in the trunk!” Stiles screams. “Anything but leaving me here. Now what are we supposed to do?”___

 _ _ _“Get ready for school,” Kira tells him gently. “Pack up. The sooner you get out of Beacon Hills, the better. Those girls know you were working with us now. We'll call every day, I swear. Derek has like a whole box of burner phones.”___

 _ _ _“Fucking clones,” he gripes, and Derek cuts his eyes at the phone, because he can _hear that_. Kira's still not processing all of this very well. Just when she thought she'd had a grasp on everything, all of it got turned upside down. “Speaking of, when do you think you'll run into another one of you?”___

 _ _ _Kira's throat tightens. “We don't have any proof that's going to happen.” Glowing eyes and pushing someone out of the way of a bullet don't mean anything, right? Right. Everyone's eyes could look bright orange in the right light. God, she's not very good at this rationalizing thing. “Derek says he's never seen or heard of any other projects. Red for Lycaon and blue for Callisto, that's all.”___

 _ _ _She talks him down a while longer until he's yawning so much that she just hangs up on him with a quiet 'love you', sitting the phone on the hood of the car where Derek and Malia have the map splayed. Braeden eyes her carefully, and Kira tries not to seem as afraid as she is. “Boyfriends, huh?” she jokes, dipping her head toward Derek.___

 _ _ _Braeden actually laughs throatily, her eyes warm and amused as she gives him a once-over, and he stiffens, like he knows. “They can be a pain,” she agrees. “Are you done with the phone, or are you going to call your mother?”___

 _ _ _Kira checks the time – four in the morning – and debates it internally. “I'd be waking her up. She probably thinks we're just spending the night at Stiles or Scott's, or still at the club. That's where we told her we'd be.”___

 _ _ _“She doesn't know you're not coming back, then?”___

 _ _ _That gut-punches her. She has to call. She has to. She dials.___

 _ _ _Her mother answers, voice clear, no trace of even drowsiness in her tone. “Are you safe?” she asks, repeating it when Kira only hedges and tries to explain where they are.___

 _ _ _“Maybe not,” she finally admits, and the rising pressure to find some kind of excuse, to make this danger less threatening and more human, is crushing.___

 _ _ _She hears the sound of her mother pulling a kitchen chair out, loud scrape and thunk. “How long do you have to talk?”___

 _ _ _Glancing up at Braeden, Kira taps her wrist questioningly. “Five minutes?” she answers after Braeden signals her. “We've been driving; we're about to start again. Look, I know you're worried, but we're going to be okay, Malia and I will call every day, it's just a road trip I sw-”___

 _ _ _“Kira,” her mother says firmly, that voice she's used their whole lives to let them know she can tell they're bullshitting. “Malia,” she adds, and Malia's head lifts sharply, eyes locking onto the phone. “I need you both to listen to me. Are you listening?”___

 _ _ _Malia's mouth forms a 'yes', nothing more than a puff of air.___

 _ _ _“Good. I need to tell you about the Kitsune studies.”___  



End file.
